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Here are five amazing Lightroom Classic tips you probably didn’t know (but should)

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Matt Klowskowski has been a staple in the Lightroom and Photoshop worlds for years. He’s written over 20 books on the subject, was inducted into the Photoshop Hall of Fame (yup, apparently that’s a thing) and is an instructor at KelbyOne. Well, Matt also posts to Youtube. And in this video, he’s bringing us five Lightroom Classic tips that we (probably) didn’t know.

Unlike a lot of videos that just rattle off a bunch of tips without context, Matt actually takes the time to show some quick practical examples for each of these tips and why you might want to use them. He demonstrates how they can help you with your process and workflow to get better results.

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How to transfer your photos to canvas and pimp them up with embroidery – Part I

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I’ve been into creative and artistic hobbies ever since I can remember. About a year ago I started embroidery just out of curiosity – and I got completely hooked! Since I’ve been into photography for ages, bringing embroidery and photography together was only a matter of time. And it happened – I learned how to transfer my photos onto canvas and pimp them up with thread.

In this article, I’ll show you the interesting look of embroidered photos. I’ll teach you how to do everything, from preparing the image to decorating it. I’ll present you with only one of the techniques for transferring your photos to fabric, and more is yet to come. But today, let’s start with the one I learned first.

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Watch and learn how to photograph snowflakes at home

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With big chunks of the world seeing snow right now, and not being able to get out much, it’s a great time to learn how to photograph snowflakes! This video from Jens at Another Perspective walks us through the process, which you can do with even an entry-level camera. You will also need either a macro lens or some extension tubes, too. And a close-up filter like the Raynox DCR-250 shown in the video might help, too.

The trick to figuring out how much magnification you need, which you can do by understanding how big snowflakes are and the magnification factor of your lens and overall camera setup, which Jens explains how to do in the video – and one of the things I like about it. Jens actually goes through the problems and how to tackle them.

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Watch: How to shoot and develop color photos with a camera obscura at home

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British photographer Brendan Barry is well-known for his camera obscura projects. He has taken photos with a camper-camera, container-camera, and plenty more. And during the lockdown, he turned his own bedroom into a camera. In this short film, he shares behind the scenes of taking a color photo with a camera obscura, which is something you can do in your own home.

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How to shoot cinematic Hollywood crane style camera moves with your smartphone

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Some of us only shoot video with our smartphones. And while many of us prefer to use “real cameras”, we often find ourselves somewhere really cool but our smartphone is all we have with us. That doesn’t mean you have to settle for crappy and jerky handheld footage, though. Oh no! Many of the techniques used to create epic footage with larger cameras can also work with your phone, too.

In this video, Steve at Learn Online Video shows us a bunch of different ways we can shoot some impressive looking cinematic camera moves using your smartphone, a gimbal and a light stand (but a monopod would work, too).

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How to use flash if you don’t like photos to look flashy

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If I lay my cards on the table, in my personal and professional work I prefer to avoid the use of flash in favour of natural light. In an ideal world, I like nothing better than working with a fleeting beam of winter sunlight that glances across a face full of character, producing the type of photograph that would typically grace the cover of National Geographic.

The trouble is, as a busy corporate photographer, it’s much more likely I have to take a series of senior executive portraits from a basement office, generously artificially lit with horrible overhead fluorescent tubes, working to shoot directors who can spare about three minutes of their time and are itching to be off back to work.

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Watch how to create the split-lighting coloured gel look in Photoshop

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The two-tone gelled split-lighting look is quite popular for portraits and fashion photography. Thanks to photographers like Jake Hicks, there are lots of tutorials out there on how to create this look in-camera. But what if you don’t have the gels? Or didn’t even think about trying to gel it during the time of the shoot but you’d like to try to create that look in post?

Well, Jesús Ramirez at the Photoshop Training Channel has just the tutorial for you. In this video, he shows us how to easily create the look in Photoshop using gradient maps, blending modes and masks. And as usual, he throws a lot of other tips and tricks in between.

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This beginner’s guide walks you through the basics of long exposure photography

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Long exposure photography is a lot of fun, whether it’s landscapes, cityscapes or light painting. It’s a technique that offers a lot of options to show the world in photography in a way that we don’t normally get to see it with the naked eye. How to shoot them sounds obvious. The clue is in the name. “Long exposure”. But it’s not always that easy.

They’re not that difficult to get to grips with, though, and you can shoot them with just about any DSLR or mirrorless camera (or perhaps even your phone!). In this beginners guide to long exposure photography, Paul at Photo Genius walks us through the basics of how to get started with shooting long exposures

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Use Linear Light blend mode in Photoshop to enhance your colours the easy way

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Enhancing the colour in photographs, no matter what they may be, is a struggle that most photographers face. Sometimes it’s quite easy. At other times, it’s not. There are a million different methods for enhancing the colour in your images during different parts of your workflow, but this one from Blake Rudis at f64 Academy is rather interesting.

Painting colour onto images isn’t a new technique, but the method Black shows in this video uses Photoshop’s Linear Light blending mode to help enhance and enrich the colours in your image using the photograph’s own already existing colour.

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